Rowan Spazzoli

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Today I opened a piece of work that I’ve been attempting to complete for a while. The shear enormity of it terrified me. There was so much to do. And so much I wanted to perfect.

For a moment I almost closed my laptop. I was overwhelmed.

And then I noticed the quote of the day on my Momentum page. The one that is listed at the top of this blog. 

It fitted so perfected. A moment of serendipity.

I looked up the original quote, which van Gogh wrote in a letter to his brother. It reads:

For the great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.What is drawing? How does one get there? It’s working one’s way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? — since hammering on it doesn’t help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently. And behold, how can one remain dedicated to such a task without allowing oneself to be lured from it or distracted, unless one reflects and organizes one’s life according to principles? And it’s the same with other things as it is with artistic matters. And the great isn’t something accidental; it must be willed

Vincent Van Gogh (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/14/impulse/)

And so that’s what I did today. I focused on the grind. Slowly. Patiently. Through the iron wall.

I’ll get there. And it won’t be accidental. It will be willed into greatness.

Image is from Cape Point, taken on the little adventure this past weekend

Blog: 322/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Explosions in the sky - Your hand in mine

While touring with the Swiss-German tourists this weekend, I pointed out some of the places and things I love the most. And at each place I proudly declared that THIS was my favourite.

Hout bay market? My favourite.

Kommetjie? Also my favourite.

Cape point? Again, my favourite.

Kalk Bay? You guessed it, my favourite

The tourists pointed out to me that almost every place we had been to had been my favourite. And it was true, I love all of those spots. 

I told them that I tend to do the same with friends. I have 10-15 people who I would proudly dub as my “best” friend.

I know that technically “favourite” and “best” technically refer to the number 1 spots. And that not everything can be number one. This isn’t lost on me.

But I use those terms to show significance. They are the people and places and things where I’m my best and favourite version of myself. They bring out my most joyous, relaxed and spontaneous me.

So if you ever here me call someone my “best” friend, or a place my “favourite”, just know that the value of the term isn’t diminished by overuse.

In fact, it means that they’re incredibly special to me. Cause they bring out the best version of me.

Image is of one of my favourite places in the world, Cape to Cuba, in Kalk Bay

Blog: 321/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Sigala - What you waiting for ft Kylie Minogue

It’s really easy to get bogged down in our own problems. Feeling like we’re not achieving enough. Or going quick enough. Or being enough in general.

It’s a little bubble that we exist in, which involves the same components in your every day situation. The same people or places or things.

So how do we break that bubble?

Move away from the every day. Go for a long drive, meet new people. Go on an adventure.

It may feel like you’re trapped in an inescapable mist. Surrounded by fog. But if you get a bit of perspective, a little distance, you’ll sometimes see that you’re actually just in a small cloud.

And it will blow over soon.

Image is Lions Head and Camps bay, as seen from Oudekraal 🙂

Blog: 320/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Matthew Mole - Take yours, I'll take mine

I know I’ve blogged about  excessive wealth before. But today I saw another example of it that blew my mind.

Parked at the Waterfront was the Octopus yacht, a 130m, $200million vessel that has 60 crew and can take 100 people on board comfortably. It has two helicopter pads, a movie theater, 41 suites, a recording studio, a basketball court and two submarines. It even has a smaller yacht that is used to transport people to it.

I understand that this ship is also used for scientific research. But it’s primary purpose is for entertainment.

With the amount spent on it, R3 billion, and the annual maintenance cost of around R300 million, the money from that boat could have been used to change hundreds of thousands of lives.

Instead, it’s a monument to excessiveness.

I hope that if I, or anyone I know, acquires that level of wealth, we’ll spend on changing peoples lives instead of spending it so lavishly on ourselves.

Image is of the Octopus at the Waterfront

Blog: 319/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Muse - Pressure

In Estonia, citizens are able to manage all their government related things on a single online portal, called E-Estonia. Here you can pay your taxes, get your passport, renew your drivers license and manage your social security details among other things. You can also register your business and do the relevant filings on the same portal. And you can use the site to vote.

As a bonus, the system is run on blockchain, making it really secure.

In South Africa, every single one of the above things I said are done through different departments. An error at the traffic department meant I couldn’t get a license for 8 weeks. Registering your business can take up to 4 weeks. It’s taken over a year to try to sort a tax issue out with SARS, which still hasn’t been resolved. And my ID documents took almost 3 years.

As a bonus, everything is done on paper, so you have to bring in certified copies of documents. And they are easily lost.

The difference of these two experiences is that in Estonia, they make it easy for citizens to do their government related activities. In South Africa, it’s a constant battle (where, for example, you’re struggling to get a tax payment to the government)

Building a new system takes time. But doing so can revolutionize the way the citizens interact with their government

Image is of the Cape Town traffic department

Blog: 318/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Live forever - third party 

One of the most difficult things I have found when it comes to writing, particularly academic writing, is constructing a narrative for a body of work.

Finding the right literature can be adventure, as you follow a rabbit hole of more and more relevant stuff that you gently collect. And data work is a series of problems that you slowly tease through until you have the right nuggets that you need. 

But these are just the building blocks. They’re the right pieces of lego, but they still need to be assembled into something coherent. 

A life of blocks

The same could be said of our lives. Some friendships, career opportunities or relationships might come naturally to us. And as such are the building blocks to our lives.

But how we build our own narrative is important. Two people with similar things in their lives could have an entirely different narrative for themselves.

In the same way a set of lego blocks could make a great structure or just be a pile on the floor. 

So much comes down to how we place them. And how we build our narrative

Image is of the Cape Town stadium, taken in Greenpoint Park 🙂

Blog: 317/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Mike Ocean - That first moment 

The opening scene in the movie “Love Actually” contains a monologue about airports. It’s all about how airports are a place of such high emotion.

A transition place. The coming and going. The jubilation and sadness.

Because of this I’m usually quite attuned to what’s going on in an airport. I’ll see people celebrating the return of loved ones or dropping someone off with a last goodbye.

This happened at a whole other level when I was at Cape Town international last week. We were picking up my Swiss friend’s boyfriend and parents (landing on two different flights).

In the space of about 15 minutes:

• A celebrity arrived and had a host of fans that sang and cheered when they walked through the doors
• A person from the army proposed to his girlfriend as she walked towards him (accompanied by balloons and fellow soldiers)… she said yes
• The entire Cape Town City football club

I think there are very few places like airports, where such magic can happen. All in the space of just a few minutes.

Image is of a marriage proposal that happened while we were waiting at Cape Town international

Blog: 316/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Billy Mac - Christmas is all around us

Note: I've been taking a little break with blog posts but will be catching up today :)

On Saturday we went to a little Italian restaurant in Woodstock called “Pesce Azzurro” where we experienced some incredible seafood and pasta. Throughout the meal, we chatted to the chef in Italian. We made jokes about various places in Italy and reminisced about some Italian things.

If you’d seen us chatting to him, you’d think we were long time family friends.

But in actual fact, we have only met him twice before.

And that’s the magic of having something in common, particularly when that something is fairly rare.

This extends to meeting fellow Zimbabweans, people from my old schools, supporters of the same football team and even South Africans when I’m overseas.

The magic of having something in common is that you have a shared experience. And shared experience is a fundamental component of friendship (that, and time).

It’s an instant connection, regardless of if you ever knew each other. Common experience enables the rapid creation of friendship.

Image is of the peri-peri prawn pasta we had at the restaurant

Blog: 315/365. Click here to read about my #365of25 journey
Song of the day: Cercami - Renato Zero